Coronavirus During the 30 April IFPMA virtual media briefing on COVID-19 treatments, key global executives pushed beyond catchy headlines to discuss the current reality of COVID-19 R&D efforts.   MSD (Merck & Co. in the US and Canada) executive vice president and chief patient officer Julie Gerberding drew upon her valuable…

India COVID-19 restrictions have severely hampered multinational pharma companies who rely on India for generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients for the last month. With restrictions beginning to ease up, some manufacturing hubs are back in operation.    After over a month of lockdown and significantly reduced manufacturing capacity, the international pharma…

Morocco Morocco has made admirable progress in building a national oncology network in recent years, but the country’s cancer patients still face significant challenges in terms of accessing the latest therapies. Here, the Morocco heads of companies with global portfolios of innovative cancer treatments discuss the current situation and how they…

Morocco Taher Hassen has been in position as GM for Morocco and Tunisia at Merck for four years, overseeing year-on-year double-digit growth for the affiliate ever since. His current priorities include facilitating greater access to innovation within Morocco and bringing Merck’s world-class technological know-how to the country.   Merck has been…

Morocco Iberma, one of the leading domestic pharma manufacturers in Morocco, has evolved significantly since its founding in 1994 to become the market leader in several therapeutic areas. The company also has an increasingly international footprint, with plans to capture new opportunities in Africa and Europe.   Karim Lahlou, who took…

Opinion Brendan Shaw takes a look at the rise of drone technology in medical product delivery and its implications for the future of healthcare.   What was once thought of as science fiction even a few years ago is rapidly becoming a commercial reality. While we have not yet seen regular…

Coronavirus In a recent interview with Financial Times, Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson set out to clarify some recent comments that the US would get priority access to a COVID-19 vaccine. He explained the firm’s collaboration with US research group BARDA and underscored that Sanofi is committed to bringing vaccines to all…

Coronavirus In an interview with Financial Times correspondent Leila Abboud at the FT Global Boardroom video conference on the 14th of May, Paul Hudson, CEO of French pharma firm Sanofi underscored the joint efforts between his company and GSK in hopes of bringing a viable Covid-19 vaccine to market more quickly.…

USA Jorge Alderete, president of ALK Americas, recently spoke to PharmaBoardroom about his 20+ years with the Danish mid-cap, the challenges in communicating the USA’s challenging market access environment to a European HQ, and why new models of patient-doctor interaction and medical distribution are crucial to ALK’s future success.   A…

Morocco Some of the more entrepreneurial Moroccan local laboratories have spotted an opening to leverage their knowledge of Sub Saharan African markets and to act as a conduit and partner for MNCs seeking to break into that region and penetrate those jurisdictions.   The African continent’s potential as a growth market…

Brazil The editorial team at Panorama Farmaceutico explain why coordinated action is needed within Brazilian pharma to reduce dependence on API imports from abroad and increase medical sovereignty. *   The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the global pharmaceutical industry’s dependence on markets such as India, the source of about 20 percent…

Roundup A roundup of the latest news in Chinese pharma, including a US IPO for Burning Rock Biotech, positive news on CanSino’s COVID-19 vaccine trials, and WuXi Biologics’s first US facility.   Pandemic Exposes Perils of Global Reliance on China for Drug Supplies https://www.voanews.com/science-health/pandemic-exposes-perils-global-reliance-china-drug-supplies The spread of COVID-19 and the unprecedented…